


Gold as Sea Waves

by fearless_seas



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Developing Relationship, Falling In Love, Fights, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Implied Sexual Content, Jealousy, Love Confessions, M/M, Math and Science Metaphors, Minor Character Death, Not Actually Unrequited Love, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Self-Destruction, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:41:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27459634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fearless_seas/pseuds/fearless_seas
Summary: How blue became Daniil's favorite color.
Relationships: Pierre Gasly/Charles Leclerc, Pierre Gasly/Daniil Kvyat
Comments: 30
Kudos: 52





	1. Chapter I

**Author's Note:**

> The Danierre boat is a lonely but passionate one. Have fun with this <3

**\----- 2019 -----**

After his podium in Germany, Daniil had kissed him. But it wasn’t just any kiss. He’d rushed into the back of the Red Bull Garage with champagne dripping across his forehead. The team slapped his sodden shoulders as he pressed passed them towards what he’d been hunting for. And eventually, he saw him. 

Pierre’s face was turned away but he stood with his racing overalls hanging loosely around his hips. When the door creaked open, Pierre’s head whirled around almost as fast as his lips curled into his smile. 

“Congratulations, Dany--”

But Daniil didn’t give him the time of day. He kissed him. He kissed him harder than he had ever kissed someone in his life. He kissed him with every inch of will within him as the adrenaline ran courses through his skin and the blood pierced his ears scarlet. And, maybe, for just that moment, when his lips were against his, Daniil could convince himself that Pierre kissed him back. 

He could’ve. 

When they pulled away, Daniil’s fist lay coiled in Pierre’s shirt almost helplessly even despite the sensation of victory within him. It was silent and their eyes met one another’s in surprise. Despite the proximity of their chests, there was an unspoken distance between them. A distance that made Daniil’s heart sink into his feet. So he did the only thing he could think of and leaned forward once again. This time, his lips only met the corner of Pierre’s mouth. 

“You’re a little excited right now, aren’t you?”, Pierre chuckled nervously. 

Daniil felt his shoulders begin to tremble. He'd forgotten about the podium, he'd forgotten about the trophy, he'd forgotten Red Bull wasn't even his team. A part of him even forgot where he was. As the space behind his eyebrow began to quiver with an oncoming headache, he managed a weak grin. 

“Excited,” he nodded, his fingers unraveled from Pierre and letting him go. “The podium really got me over… overwhelmed,” he stretched himself out. His mind blanked grasping at any explanation for his actions.

Pierre only smiled, even though others would never do the same in his position. “Congratulations. You deserved it.” He turned away from him and snatched his team sweater from the back of the chair with a satisfied hum. But he hesitated before putting it on almost if he felt he didn’t deserve it. 

Daniil’s lips felt warm. _What did I just do?_ His ribs rattled together in his chest, panic setting in. “Thank you,” he chewed on his inner cheek. He failed to understand how he’d just kissed a man that he didn’t even know the color of his eyes

“We should leave, no?”, Pierre stepped towards the door without meeting his gaze, his hand slid over the light switch of his motorhome. Daniil’s head swam with thoughts. His attention followed the zipper Pierre glided across his abdomen. “Dany? All the champagne go to your head?”, Pierre forced a hint of laughter. 

He looked so… lovely. Daniil had never thought of a man as lovely. The blonde in Pierre's hair stood on end, the cuffs of his sleeves hanging over his hands almost like a child. There was a kindness that painted itself along his cheek bones like a gift. He appeared tiny before him, as though a part of him was fading away. And maybe the kiss was Daniil's way of saying: _it’ll all be okay_. _Look what they did to me, and look what I made of it_. 

“I’m sorry the race didn’t go as well for you,” Daniil stammered out, attempting to fill the empty space with words. More than anything he wanted to avoid the eventual conversation between them. 

Pierre sighed, his mask of positivity slipping for only a split second before he straightened himself out. 

“It’s life,” he said morosely.

 _It’s life._

They stepped out of the room. Daniil loosened the neck of his overalls as they stumbled into the full garage. Before they parted ways in the paddock, Daniil tossed a question over his shoulder like a coin in a wishing well:

“What color are your eyes?”, he shouted above the noise of celebration in the paddock. 

Pierre stuffed his hands into his pockets, “Blue!” It was the first real grin Daniil had seen him make. “The color of lots of beautiful things, I will also add,” he admitted smugly. 

Daniil only watched him leave with a finger caressing the line of his own lips as if searching for a semblance of their kiss somewhere along the cracks of his skin. 

_It’s life_ , Pierre had said. 

But it is also part of life to not have a plan?

It is life to indulge in the sacred nature of a kiss. 

A kiss between two men--two friends…

_________________________

Until the end of the first half of the season, neither of them say a word to one another. And, somehow, that spoke louder than a thousand cries. Separate teams, separate lives and yet the very same world. Daniil observes him from the corner of his eye and occasionally presses his fingers to his lips. 

It was inevitable, wasn’t it? When the news came out. Daniil found out in the early morning hours of summer break and he wasn’t surprised. The taste of it made him throw his phone across the room, his face falling into his hands. It hardly influenced him, but… it did. Because, better than anyone, he knows. There’s a fresh fracture on his screen when he picks himself towards the corner of his apartment. His calls receives no answer so he only stares off of his balcony towards the many stories below. The air was warm. His hands still felt cold. Yet the sky was blue, darker than that which he ever knew… 

Pierre returns to the overalls he once wore. Black for blue. The first words they speak to one another is Thursday after the summer break. It’s still sunny but the clouds are dark. It should’ve been a warning, Daniil thinks days later. 

A slap on the shoulder startles him in his place. “Hello, teammate!”

The familiar vocals brought him face to face with Pierre. His face was painted with the very same kindness as before. But there was an age, an exhaustion Daniil had seen brewing since before that day they kissed. The kiss carried a bitter aftertaste now. It’s mixed with a broken promise. One that he had whispered as strongly as he could:

 _It’ll all be okay_. 

Daniil’s eyebrows narrow, “Feel at home again?”

Pierre peered down at his shirt. Daniil could’ve swore he’d seen a flicker of sadness but it was snuffed out swiftly as a candle flame. “It doesn’t feel like I even left,” he shrugged. _But you did_. “Maybe you’ll kiss me every time you have a podium,” Pierre tilted his head. 

A part of Daniil had hoped he had forgotten all about it. Daniil wants to ask, _is that an invitation?_ He doesn’t. They only gape silently at one another as if glancing at a mirror image. A mirror image only years apart, a reflection years in the making. But Daniil hadn’t forgotten about the kiss. Even though it felt forbidden. Forbidden as sin.

His attention plays along the silhouettes of his ceiling as the late night hours slow by as a crawl. He remembers rushing towards Pierre as pure as instinct, reactionary and animalistic. And Pierre felt so small in his arms, even as his muscle pushed and prodded from beneath his skin. 

_I’ve never thought of him this way before, what changed?_

Perhaps it was understanding. Daniil understood him even as they weren’t the closest of friends. He’d been in the same place once. Thrown out, abandoned. Until dawn spreads fast across the wall, Daniil curls his fingers tightly into the sheets to quell an urge within him. Something soft in the material brings him back to that July day. Soft as Pierre's expression. That day like yesterday… 

There is no formula. No equation or probability. No hypothesis nor explanation. He'd grown on the idea that emotions are fickle, irrational drives--utterly and perfectly explainable. Even as he knows this information, the math escapes him. He turns over in his sleep, his mind wandering numbers and numbers away from a conclusion… But he remembers the tiny room and the sensation of the light streaming from the rain speckled window. Skin to skin back in Germany.

_________________________

The day Anthoine Hubert died was the brightest day Spa had seen in weeks. 

Pierre doesn’t smile for weeks. 

And Daniil knew something in him had shattered. His piano strings had finally been snipped, his chemistry altered, every inch of him… never quite the same. Daniil only wanted but to waste his hours sweeping up those broken pieces. He would grab for Pierre’s wrist, open his palms and then seal them once more with a brand new promise. 

_Finish this_. _You’re not done._

___________________________

It’s fall. Pierre is seated on the window, his legs curled towards his chest. “Don’t you love all those pretty colors?”, he sighed deeply. 

“I’m color blind,” Daniil lied in return. 

Pierre laughed loudly but it didn’t feel out of place. “Your humor is so dry. I love it, silly Russian man.” He was the only one who ever laughed at his jokes. Truly laughed. Daniil tossed his cap onto the table before climbing up the window ledge across from him. Pierre moved his feet from out of his way, “You’re too tall to be here, but I’ll allow you anyways.”

Daniil rolled his eyes, “Am I supposed to be thankful?”

_I think of myself as a lost traveler. And you? A home to rest my weary head._

Pierre glanced away from the window, his lashes fluttering slowly across his cheeks. “You’re the one who kissed me after all.”

Daniil swallowed hard, his throat tightening, “I was only excited after the podium, you know that.”

“Do I?”, Pierre smirked, "You didn't kiss anyone else."

“Forget all about it,” Daniil slid his leg off of the ledge, touching it to the floor. 

Pierre’s grin fell, “Wait, I’m sorry. Don’t go.” His hand reached for his thigh to tug himself closer. 

Daniil didn’t move. Neither did he leave. His eyes fell to the palm on his leg and then to Pierre’s eyes. There was a silent plea hidden deep within the pages of his skull. _Please, don’t leave me,_ it said. For a moment, the probabilities once again escaped him. The only time that occurred was when the helmet was over his eyes and he was racing. That thought paralyzed him more than anything. But not enough to not…

Daniil leaned forward and he did what he'd been wishing to for over a month. Their lips collided violently. A well of tension spilled forth between them. Mouths that licked at the fear on each other’s tongues. Pierre’s fingertips curled desperately into the charms of his hair. It was a desperation he’d recognized all too easily. It was peaceful as a rainy day that slowly but surely rolled towards an impending storm. 

_You bring the thunder, I’ll bring the lightning, my dear._

Daniil placed a hand to his neck, and through the fragility, Pierre’s heartbeat thrummed feverishly as a drum on the cusp of his fingertips. And it was all electricity. 

_Kiss me fiercely as a hurricane._

They didn’t pull away. Not for a long minute. The sadness within them each fought for control, rage a burning touch of fire. Pierre’s good at his, Daniil notices. As if on queue, Pierre’s hand slides towards his inner thigh and Daniil’s breath hitched in his throat. 

_You’re a breath of air in the lungs of a drowning man._

As quickly as it began, it was over. Pierre surrenders his hand and Daniil hesitates before opening his eyes. He blinks to attention and he almost convinces himself it was too good to be true, that it was nothing more than a dream. Before he could move, Pierre had slid from the ledge, drawing himself towards the door and pulling it open. 

He pauses. “I don’t want to forget all about it.” The door closes on him. 

Daniil is in too much shock to say a word in response. 

_Neither do I_. The stars rushed backwards. The better margins of their souls understood each other more than a thousand microscopes ever could. Daniil stares at the crisp orange leaves on the paddock trees. _Am I the scientist?_ _Or am I the experiment?_

___________________________

They always say habits are hard to quit. Especially bad ones. And all this became a habit. Hard kisses in the back of the garage and hands that yearned to wander all but a little too far… Pierre was best bad habit he ever had. He felt like all of them together: the final sip of black coffee or cigarette ash that burnt his fingers. It was a reminder each day, with each rush, with each ecstasy… this is what he wanted. This was who he wanted to be. 

One day in between a mouth full of air, Daniil tugs himself from Pierre’s grasp. Pierre lets out a groan of disappointment. His eyes flicker slow and lazy, a hint of tease glistened across his features. 

“Why’d you stop?”, Pierre inquired, moving back slightly. 

Daniil couldn’t answer. He wouldn’t. It was staring into Pierre’s eyes that day and realizing only but how far he had fallen towards the bottom of his ocean. The thought parazlyzed him with fear, a startling and unimaginable fear that was beginning to drive him over the edge. 

Pierre’s brows arched, his face suddenly hard and serious. He grabbed for his hands, “Dany? Why are you shaking?”

Again, nothing. His jaw clenched tightly shut. Even if he wanted to, Daniil was unsure if he would be able to speak. The concern written into the pink lines of Pierre’s face felt like a warning:

_Leave before you reach the bottom…_

Daniil only held him for dear life. 

There was something unexplainable that he needed. Something provided for him every minute he spent with Pierre. 

So, he said the only thing he thought to: “You taste like sin.” Their eyes locked. “And I never knew something that tasted so good.” Pierre pursed his lips and drew a hand to his cheek. Daniil only shut his sleepy eyes, pressing his lips to the palm of his hand, his teeth brushing the crevices over his skin.

___________________________

As he said before, he knows precisely how it feels. He’s been through it before. It’s the same motto printed across their foreheads, written at the rifts of their smiles as though hidden like secrets:

_PROVE. THEM. WRONG._

Russia is the first race since his demotion that Pierre does not accumulate points. The first. The first and only race. Daniil observed him tug his balaclava off with a huff in a corner of a garage following the race. There was a hint of rage in his movements, red hot distress that colored his cheeks. With himself, with the world or with the car and the team--Daniil did not know. 

Pierre is stuffing his things into a bag when Daniil approaches him. Softly, he places a hand on his shoulder and clearly startled, Pierre greets his face stiffly. 

“It’s a shame about today,” Daniil says. 

Pierre turns away, “Thank you for reminding me.” There’s a knife in his words. 

Daniil shakes off his sentence with a flick of his hair. “We all make mistakes,” he shrugs, “We all have bad days.” He notes this even while knowing he would react exactly the same given the circumstances. 

“I didn’t have a bad day!”, Pierre whirls around. The tone of his voice snaps the frigid air biting at their ears. “I wasn’t good enough today,” the last part is a murmur. 

Daniil rolls his eyes, “Don’t say that.”

“You think it’s stupid, you’re even mocking me.”

“I’m…”, he slows, “I’m not.”

Pierre swallows the lump in mouth, his eyes are wide and unreadable. “Say it, why don’t you?”, he hisses, “Say what everyone else is saying behind my back.”

Daniil is taken aback by his provocation. “No.” Daniil’s heart rate burns hot in his throat but he forces it down like hard liquor. “What do you want me to tell you? That you don’t deserve to be here?” Pierre looks away, the line of his jaw tight. “You’re really that ungrateful,” he scoffs, “I don’t think you realize how many would kill to be in the position you are.”

Pierre crosses his arms, “I’m ungrateful for wanting to win, for wanting more?”

“You weren’t enough for them to have you stay.” _Red Bull_. 

For a moment, Pierre is quiet. The energy between them is delicate as glass. His body quivers with restraint. “They should’ve given me more time,” Pierre bites into the flesh of his letters. 

“Teams will always put their better interests first,” Daniil is vaguely aware that his voice sounds angry. 

“If you were Marko, you would’ve done the same thing?”

There will always be a dichotomy. The light of Pierre’s eyes and the darkness of Daniil’s. It wasn’t something he had noticed before that moment. That moment apart with minds running miles and miles around each other’s tracks. And Pierre was searching for what Daniil did not know the answer to. 

So he said it. “Yes,” he nodded. 

Their eyes did not part. Even as Daniil noticed a small part of Pierre crack as a fragile vase against the weight of his words. As it appeared as though there was nothing left, Daniil uncurled the fist at his side, his nails had left half-moon crescents in the calluses of his knuckles. 

“It will come between us one day.”

“We’re prepared to make that sacrifice.”

“Are we?”, Pierre shakes his head. 

“There isn’t much to us,” Daniil lied, “Nothing much at all.”

The silence once again… “Nothing?”, Pierre edged cautiously. Daniil didn't know that idea would hurt him. 

“Nothing.”

Pierre stole a step closer, “Absolutely nothing?”

“Yes,” Daniil straightened himself. 

“And you feel absolutely nothing we're together?”, Pierre wore a blanket of determination. Every sentence brought them closer together. Daniil’s breath pace quickened. He felt claustrophobic as if a noose were closing in around his throat. Pierre reached out, his fingers brushing towards his chest. “I keep getting closer, and closer,” Pierre whispered, “And yet, you don’t move?”

Daniil was at a loss of words, his tongue hanging thick like cotton in his mouth. Heat crept across his neck, flowing towards his cheeks. “You don’t have to do that,” he sounded weak. _Is that me?_

“Do what?”, Pierre gazed up to him, a sharpness carving his countenance. A breath of allure dragging towards him. “Catching you in your lie?”

“I’m not lying,” Daniil snapped.

“Then why are you still standing here?”

“Stop that. Stop telling me how I feel.”

Pierre frowned deeply, “I don’t like being lied to.”

Without control, Daniil caught Pierre's wrist midair, his fingers pressing bruise-like into the skin. “And I don’t like being controlled!”

Pierre’s confidence didn’t flicker away. “What are you going to do with that?”, he gasped, nudging his chin towards his pinned wrist. “Do your worst,” he hissed.

“No!”, Daniil shoved him away. He chewed into his lips, pushing down on his urge to…

“Hit me then,” Pierre proposed, “You already seem capable of it.”

“I’m not going to hit you.”

“I have no effect on you?”, Pierre’s face is unmoving. 

Daniil felt his chest tighten. “You don’t!”

His teasing came like hot venom. “Not even a little?”

Once again. A step closer, “You already fucking heard me!”, Daniil screamed. Without realizing it, he shut his eyes and swung his fist. 

_And lies, they eat at you after time. Worms that rise from the dirt to feed upon our muscle and our flesh._

Daniil stared into Pierre’s soft eyes and he knew, he knew, he knew and he knew. All that he couldn’t say. So he'd hit him. Pierre was so shocked, he never even made a sound. 

Daniil doesn’t recall closing his eyes. Maybe he simply forgot a few seconds in time. When he comes to, Pierre is bent with a hand to his mouth, his movements the only sound in a quiet so damn loud. He pulls a hand slowly from his face, a spot of blood drips across his chin, falling away onto the floor. 

The tension rolls off his shoulders. Daniil stares at the bruise forming on his fist and then to the man before him. HIs stomach sinks. Instinctively, he reaches towards him, “Pierre--” 

Without allowing him to finish, Pierre shoves him hard. Daniil’s back meets the wall with a crash. A fury melted its way between them, toiling with the stems of their bones. Pierre pinched an elbow to his chest, the air ripped from Daniil's lungs. Black stars crumbled before his eyes as the back of Daniil’s head slammed the corner of the shelf. 

But they didn’t move. They didn’t fight, or scream or make another scene. They remained like this. Body to body, sharp breaths and sweaty foreheads. And when the stars cleared, it was just as before…

“Well?”, Pierre growled low in his throat. The adrenaline made Daniil’s voice tremble. His opened his mouth and then closed it once again. A piece of him spoke with the absence of words. 

_You know I carry a silence, a silence within me that begs for nothing but to be understood. A silence only I comprehend…_ _But here you are. Here you are reading the science that makes me like your favorite book or sheet music._

_And I know, I know and I know as I stare into the softness of your blue eyes… you’re hard as crystal if you tried._

_The tendons of my heart strain themselves under your weight. I would surely let them snap than have you fall…_

_I implore you, and I implore you… allow me to reach towards your soul as strongly as I wrap my fingers over your throat._

_You are more to me that you will ever, ever even know._

_Please… be what I have been waiting for._

He said none of this even as Pierre already understood. From Pierre’s lip, the blood dripped into the cuff of his sleeve. A spot of it smeared his teeth. Like rabid animals, or a shark drawn towards scent, they kissed. They kissed with a fervency that shook at the walls. A frantic energy that made them clawed across each other like beasts. Torn shirt fabric, popped buttons and all. Daniil tasted blood, his tongue swiping against the cut on Pierre's lip. 

In the scientific field, there are new discoveries every day. Each hour ticking by draws itself towards another discovery, another long-awaited conclusion that shouts an echo of eureka into the clouds. Pierre was a variable that tumbled itself without awareness into his master-plan. A part of Daniil will sit, far into old age when his hair is long and gray, failing and failing again to understand it. But he was scared of the answer. As much as he was scared of him. 

So, Daniil gripped his hair as thought it were the answer, and he, the mad scientist in a lab coat counting his blessings in astrology.

And they were nothing more. They were nothing more than one of the thousands of stars. One of the thousands of stars still struggling to comprehend the chemistry that binds them to the same orbit. 

_Oh, Pierre, kiss me so I forget about the violet mark on my forehead and the crimson cut on your lip._

_We can be blue… only blue._

_A sea that conceals its sins in the deepest of coves._

Eventually they pull away. 

There are tears in Pierre’s eyes. They brim at the corners with every hint of realization that fell upon his shoulders like cold ash. In the silence that mingled with the blood on their tongues… Pierre stepped away. He appeared nauseated. The hand clenched to his mouth wavered like a leaf in the bitter autumn wind. In a matter of moments, before anything could be discussed, he was gone. Gone with the wind his coat created as it swept from the chair and the door slammed. Gone. 

Daniil slid to the floor, his head coming between his knees. The teeth that had beared themselves with ferocity slowly slid towards oblivion. 


	2. Chapter II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe we're saying goodbye to Danierre teammates this week :(

In the weeks between races, not a word is spoken. Every so often Daniil’s finger hovers over his phone. His finger twitching over the three-syllable name and the sight of it reignites the third degree burns Pierre peppered beneath his skin. He remembers the realization he’d seen him show through tears.

Eventually, courage is all he can muster. A deep swallow of it thick as bourbon. His hand wrapped over the stem of a small bouquet, he ambled his way towards Pierre’s hotel room. For a moment, his knuckles hesitated over the door for what felt like eternity. But he knocked--just as he knew he would have to. It took only a few seconds but the door flung open. And there he was. The sight of him drew breath from Daniil’s lungs. 

Pierre wore a gray shirt and a pair of sweatpants that hung around his hips. His cheeks immediately flushed a violent shade of pink. But his gaze never faltered, even as Daniil’s tumbled to the floor with a shame-like complexion. 

“I wasn’t expecting you,” but the lift in Pierre’s voice gave him away. 

The very thought, the simple idea that Pierre was _expecting_ him planted itself in Daniil’s head. It was a bright, bloody thing with thick emerald leaves and roots that dug their forever home into his bones. The simple way that Daniil grasped his validation from almost nothing made him sick. 

“These--these are for you,” Daniil stammered. He held out his hand and without reluctance, Pierre grabbed it from him into his own. Daniil couldn’t help but notice the manner with which he cradled those stems… coddling them in his palms as though he were Atlas holding the world upon his shoulders. For all Daniil knew, he felt like the goddess Ate: a sensation within him bleeding with unforgettable guilt. 

Pierre noticed his eyes pass over his lip as if searching for a blushing scar of the cut from before. “It healed,” Pierre smiled, his head tilting. God, if he wasn’t the most precious thing Daniil had ever seen. So warm and yet so, so cold. 

“I’m sorry about that,” Daniil’s stomach churned. 

Pierre shrugged, “It was nothing. Don’t worry, Dany.”

 _Relief_. 

And maybe these two weeks without him between races had taught how much he loved to need him. How he ached and burned with the urge to touch him, or maybe, to just be held himself. The teeth, the animal between them slept for now. 

“I just--I wanted to--”, the words swallowed him. The relief, the one that had been waiting for days on end had released something within him. Uncontrollable.

Pierre chuckled, “What has your tongue?” Daniil was silent. He only stood, his shoulders narrowed as he allowed his heart to spill across his cheeks. He couldn't look him in the eyes--he _wouldn't_. The soft laughing from before had retreated into sudden emptiness. “Dany?”, he placed a hand to his shoulder. “Look at me,” he demanded urgently. 

Daniil peered up. And he peered into blue… and blue… and blue…

 _Because I love you with all of the little stars you reflect across my shores_. 

Daniil rushed forward into his arms and it all burst forth. Months or even years of it. He cried. He cried harder than he had ever remembered doing so before. 

“Oh, Dany, come on,” Pierre shut the door with his foot and led him towards the bed. He forcibly sat him down, standing before him with two hands on his upper arms. “What are you crying about?”, he asked softly. He moved away to turn on the light but Daniil gripped his wrist hard, pulling him back. “Okay,” Pierre sighed with defeat, nestling in beside him, “I’ll stay.”

He did. He stayed even as Daniil’s lungs ran dry with whimpers and his throat scorched hotter than the desert sands. He remained beside him as Daniil’s teeth edged into the meat of his shoulder and his body heaved without end.

“It’s okay, Dany. Please, it’s okay..."

_You are the greatest bad habit a man could ever have._

_And bad habits come with a cost._

The first words Daniil speaks are into the carve of Pierre’s neck. “What is the cost of all this?”, his voice wavers, his teeth chattering together. 

“I want to tell you nothing.”

“Then say it.”

“Nothing, Dany,” Pierre pushed him away and grasped the sides of his face with his hands. He shook him slightly, “There is no cost to this.” Daniil nods. “Believe me.”

Daniil shuts his eyes once more. “I do.” The energy is gone. His eyes drift shut with the sleepy sadness only a man who has cried a thousand tears will ever know. 

Pierre knows. He knows, and he knows and he knows--

As strongly as Daniil knew that day they fought. That day with the cut on his lip and the crimson, crimson red...

Misty midnight light floods across the sheets. An angelic glow dancing itself over the knuckles Daniil pushes beneath Pierre's shirt. 

“Get some sleep, why don’t you?”

Daniil’s back meets the bed without a fight. The flowers he had given Pierre only moment before are but decaying rose petals on the mantelpiece. He senses Pierre’s eyes upon him as he falls asleep. His fingers playing with the charms of his hair as one would fiddle with their most beloved instrument. 

Another habit. Another day. The same extraordinary Pierre. 

Nights become Daniil’s favorite time. They laugh and tumble around in softened sheets every turn of the day. Heartbeats become a sleepy tune that lulls him a lullaby to sleep. Skin on skin, memories forever sinking in. 

Until one day, Pierre questions him: “What did you really mean when you said we weren’t anything?”

“Well, what can we be?”

“I don’t know,” Pierre shrugs, pulling away a few inches. The sunset illuminates the drapes that flow towards them on the bed. 

“Exactly.”

Pierre has always been a talker, an actor. Constantly performing whatever chaos within him prevails. 

And Daniil? He himself doesn’t quite know. 

But Pierre doesn’t say a thing for the rest of the night. 

Other times, other nights, the instinct within them prevails. 

Frantic clothes that tumble across the door, nails and teeth that rip into flesh. Moans and urging that draws them closer and closer together. Fist to throat, Pierre’s lashes fluttering soft and inviting as he holds himself above him. Lips moving between each other. Daniil squeezes harder and Pierre only moans loudly into his mouth. 

It felt like a tragedy in the best possible way. 

“More,” Pierre gasps. 

Daniil can only groan, his body quivering with a need for him. 

_Atlas, my dear, give me a little of the earth you hold upon your shoulders._

Daniil stares into him. 

_Pierre, my dear, the curve of your lips write my history._

_The sounds you make both create and decimate me._

However, they always must leave. They leave as the morning sun rises every race weekend day. Perhaps a final kiss, or nothing at all but a note as he opens his eyes. Friends. Inviting presences in the paddock; banter that swims friendly between two men. Smiles that never last too long. People stare at them, their mouths are faint whispers:

“Red Bull rejects.” But it’s never malice. It’s filled with pity. 

A few more races and the season will close. This idea hurts most of all. The idea that after all this, all these memories, everything will become a nothingness. A nothingness that truly meant everything to each other at the end of the day. Something about Pierre fills him with yearning to scream in the faces of the ignorant:

_It is us. We are us._

_We hold each other as tightly as u and s cradle one another._

Ain’t that a beautiful thing?

The season winds down. A few more races. As Pierre passes him in the garage, his fingertips brush the cusp of his hips as painter to canvas. It made him feel like art; Pierre the colors that coat the weavings of his darkened lines. And nobody knows. Not a soul but the two of them. _Us_. It truly took hell for them to find heaven, it seems. 

“Playing that old thing?”, Pierre is drawing the neck of his overalls down as he passes him in the hallway from the garage. 

Seated on the floor with his clothes, Daniil doesn’t tear his attention from the guitar in his hands. His digits pluck over every chord of music. “It’s not old,” he frowns, “I bought it recently.”

“You sound good,” Pierre’s voice is proud with soft admiration. “Why does it sound so sad?”

Daniil pauses and tears his hand away from his guitar. Without an answer, he shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says, “I play what sounds good.”

Pierre crosses his arms, “Music is one of those unexplainable things. No studying! It’s all action. That's what is cool about it." He grins. 

“No,” Daniil shakes his head, “It’s purely mathematical if you break it down into timing, rhythm--”

“--Hush, hush,” Pierre rolls his eyes with a soft smirk. “Music is emotional, our attraction to it is the way it makes us feel.”

“Not me,” Daniil replies, “I play what I know sounds good.”

“So, you’re doing math equations in your brain? Or do you play what makes you feel good?”

“It’s…”, Daniil pauses, his arm resting over the instrument limply. 

Pierre crouches down and slides in beside him on the floor. “Admit it,” he nudges him, “It’s emotional!”

“It’s simple mathematics.”

“Whatever you say, Dany.”

But Daniil tugs out a few mournful chords when Pierre parts from him. _Emotions are too complicated to be spelled out by a few simple machines_. But that is life… the grind and wind of the machine toiling them further and further towards the future. And all the music he plays sounds melancholy, but he’d never noticed it before. It was as though his hands were being led by unseen forces he could never control. But the notes were beautiful that moment in the hallway seated together. 

In bed, Daniil drags his thumb over the bridge of Pierre’s nose, pressing his fingerprints as road maps over the dusty freckle stars. 

“What do you want to do when the season ends?”, Pierre hums. 

It was inevitable. “What do you mean?”, Daniil questions. 

Pierre shifts himself onto his elbow, the sheets pulling away from his shoulders. “At the end… is this it?”

 _No, please, no_. 

“I don’t see how we can carry this on much longer. People will start to notice.”

Pierre shrugs, “I told Charles.”

Daniil’s eyes widened. “What?!”, he pants, “Why the hell would you do that?”

“He’s my best friend,” Pierre frowns with offense, “You don’t think he would start getting suspicious when I started getting my affection from somewhere else?”

Daniil had never noticed this before. His stomach drops. “You two…”, his brain felt numb. 

“Since we were kids,” he smirks. Tufts of his bleach-burned bangs shift in front of his eyes. 

“But not anymore?”

“No.”

 _Good_. 

Daniil didn’t ask why. He didn’t want to know. “I still think you shouldn’t have told him,” he said after a moment of quietude. "Or at the very last you should've asked me."

“As you said, people will start to notice.”

“I guess we shouldn’t carry this on much longer then,” the rational part of him (the one that ruins exquisite architecture with his concern over non-parallel structures) is like a devil at this point. A barrier between his desire and his concealed intellect. 

“So, that’s it then? You’ve decided.” Daniil doesn’t say yes. But it’s the absence of those words that speaks louder. Pierre sighs, tossing the blankets away from his body and sitting up. 

Daniil moves to follow him, “Where are you going?”

Pierre swings his legs over the side of the bed, leaning over to snatch at his clothing on the floor. “I’m going to visit a friend,” his tone is annoyed. 

“Charles?”

Pierre peers over his shoulder. There is a pause. “I don’t know what you’re so afraid of. I’m not asking you to shout about me from the rooftops.”

“I know that,” Daniil wraps a hand over the muscle of his back as if guiding him back into bed.

“We’re not that only ones,” Pierre murmurs through pursed lips. A few seconds later, he stands to his feet, tugging his hoodie back over his shoulders. 

_Please, Pierre, don’t you see how much I want this?_

_How much I want you?_

Pierre barely looks towards him. Before he leaves, tugging the door open, he stops in his thoughts. “Tomorrow,” his eyes are sharp, “I’ll send you the address. Then you’ll know.”

“Wait--”, but he’s gone. 

Daniil falls onto his back, his arms stretching the boundaries of the mattress as if reaching for a semblance of his ghost in the material. _Then you’ll know? Know what?_ Daniil doesn’t sleep until the sun has all but risen. They were Titans all the same. Sinful little creatures punished by the end of their days. If Pierre was Atlas, Daniil could only imagine himself Prometheus. Self-sabotage is a curious thing, isn’t it? You choose what you believe is better for you even though you know it causes you greater pain. If only Pierre knew this before he left. That all of what he spoke was not what he desired. And he wanted more than anything for:

_"I know that’s not what you want,” Pierre would say._

In the morning, it’s a simple text. An address, a hotel room close by and a time. 

The two men pass each other throughout the race day. Seldom, a touch stretches out and Daniil reassures with eyes and eyes alone:

 _I am coming tonight. You know I want to see you._

Pierre nods, nibbling on his bottom lip and loosening the grip around his wrist. 

Hours later, Daniil shoves a few crumbled bills into the hand of his taxi. A few words of gratitude in Spanish leave his tongue. As he enters the lobby of a hotel he'd never been to, his phone buzzes. 

**_P:_ ** _Wait downstairs._

Daniil swallows, a hive of bees taking flight in the pit of his stomach. He steals himself away into one of the corners, nervously bouncing his phone on the heel of his shoes. And his mind drifts away… drifting into the colored chandelier hanging from the ceiling above. 

“Dany?”, a familiar voice bursts out behind him. 

He throws his face over his shoulder, standing quickly to his feet. He recognized the voice, but it wasn’t Pierre at all. A surprised smile greets Daniil’s features. “Daniel?”, he greets, automatically tossing an arm over his shoulder. Daniil’s eyebrows pinch together as they pull apart, “I didn’t know you were staying here.”

Daniel smiles widely, his collar is popped open revealing a hint of tanned flesh beneath. He brushed away a few of the brown curls that hung over his flushed forehead. “Long time no chat,” he made a face, “And I’m not staying here. Pierre sent me down to get you.”

Daniil is taken back for a moment. “You were with him? Why couldn’t he come down himself?” His heart forces an annoyed chime in his chest. 

Daniel shrugs, “He was having a bit to drink, I think.” He chuckles, slapping his forehead, “I have as well.” Daniil only frowns, his stomach churns once again. “Come on,” he motions towards the elevator, “Everyone we’re expecting is already here.”

 _Everyone?_ But before Daniil can analyze the thought, he is tugged towards the elevator with hands that slid towards the palm of his own. 

Even if Pierre didn’t meet him downstairs, it is he who answers the door on the first knock. Pierre huffs, smoothing the creases of his sweater and dragging them both into the room. “Took you long enough,” he smirks. 

Daniel shakes his head, his mouth suddenly loose. “Talk like that the rest of the night and you know what’ll happen,” he drags a finger across his neck as he turns the corner into the next room where a chorale of voices can be heard. Pierre’s spine straightens, his cheeks burning brightly. 

“What is this?”, Daniil whispers discreetly.

Pierre meets his eyes, “You’ll see.” He squeezes his hand, “Stay calm. Relax. Drink a little and have a good time.”

The hotel room is one bedroom, a balcony hangs from the living room. Daniil slips into the space after Pierre. Even as all eyes turn towards him, Daniil only stares into the bulb in the ceiling… the lights dimmed and hardly lit above their heads. 

“Take a seat wherever you want,” Daniel motions from the corner of the couch. 

On the other side of the furniture, Sebastian peels his attention towards him. “That all depends on if he’s a watcher or player.”

“A what?”

Passing by him, Pierre pushes Daniil toward an open armchair. “Do you like to watch, or do you like to play?”, his breath is warm against the shell of his ear. 

Surprised, Daniil stumbles backwards, his head moving frantically around him to take in his surroundings. He hadn’t noticed Kimi until he panned his eyes across the room. This was because Sebastian was so closely nestled in beside him, a knee bent over his thigh. 

“If you want a drink, go ahead.” The final man in the room had hardly acknowledged him but he turned around on his heels now. The liquid in his glass did not move with each of his calculated movements. 

“Pour me one, Charles,” Pierre giggled towards his friend. 

Charles smirks, staring towards the collection of assorted bottles. “Haven’t you had enough?”

“Don’t tell me you’re drunk already,” Daniil groans between his teeth. 

At the tone of his voice, Pierre slips away from him with a frown. He crosses the room, hopping onto the table and murmuring a quick _merci_ as Charles glides in besides him. “Barely,” Pierre ignores him, “Only two drinks. I’m a big boy, if you haven’t noticed.” 

A familiar dimple presses the fabric of Charles’s skin. “Sure you are, Pear,” his lips brush over Pierre’s ear softly. 

_Are you trying to make me hate you?_

In a swift movement, Kimi sets his glass down on the floor. His hand slides over Sebastian’s jaw, tugging it towards him impatiently.

“What are you doing?”, Daniil rushes out in confusion.

Kimi scoffs, “What does it look like?”

Daniil only turns his head away as they kiss. 

“You never knew about this?”, Daniel chuckles. He reaches towards the armchair and sets his hand over Daniil’s gently. “You and Pierre aren’t the only one.” But Daniil tugs his hands away, setting it into his lap and tightly clenching his nails into his fist. 

His eyes drift once again towards the table, gliding up the shaft of Pierre’s leg until he reaches his face. _I only want to touch you_. _You and you alone_. And Pierre meets his gaze, locking it in his sight as if to say:

 _I can’t keep chasing you night and day_. 

Frustrated, he pushes away Daniel's advances and stands to his feet, crossing the room and postulating before Pierre with his arms crossed. “Can we talk?”, Daniil lays a hand on Pierre’s to urge him away from the table. Away from Charles. 

Pierre’s mouth firms, “No, we don’t have anything to talk about.” He shifts closer to Charles who manages a hum of delight and presses his lips to the carve of his neck. 

Daniil senses something burning beneath his skin. Furious and animalistic. Enough to make him ball his wrists at his sides. But a part of him knows he has only but to blame himself. 

“Relax,” Pierre’s eyes slide shut the farther Charles moves across his skin. He reaches forward, his hand cupping Daniil's hip and he doesn’t hesitate to move closer. “Relax, Dany…” A hand slid to the back of his neck, drawing him even nearer. “Just kiss me instead,” he whispered. 

_The fearsome wind cannot compel me to move._

_But you?_

_I am caved with only the faintest breath fresh off your tongue._

Daniil clenches his teeth, “Not with him here.”

At the sound of this, Charles draws away from Pierre, his brows knit together. “You can’t tell me to leave. But you can join.”

Pierre’s eyes don’t ever leave Daniil's. They’re brimmed with what felt like medicine in his injured veins. In a rough movement, Pierre’s fist grips the lapels of Charles’s sweater, smashing his lips to his. And Daniil can only see himself. Himself all but days ago. 

“I missed you,” Charles murmurs into his mouth. 

Pierre ignores this. His eyes open, sliding wider with every kiss to his lips. Eyes wide enough to stare starkly into Daniil’s pale complexion. 

“Stop this,” Daniil’s voice is all but a harsh whisper, “I know what you’re doing.” Across the room, Sebastian and Kimi leave towards the bedroom without bothering to slam the door shut on their way in. 

“Then what am I doing?”, Pierre’s face narrows. He asks this despite knowing the truth himself. 

Charles sighs, “I’m doing to give you two some space.”

“No, please,” Pierre blurts, “Stay.”

_Stay._

_Weren’t those the same words I spoke to you not so long ago?_

Charles smiles softly, he presses a kiss to Pierre’s forehead and squeezes his hand. Still in the armchair, almost as if watching the situation, Daniel draws Charles into his lap as his approaches. 

“Finally,” he growls, “Something for me.”

Daniil swallows a lump like concrete in his throat. Anger hot as acid boils through each harsh beat of his quickened heart. His hand flies forward, clutching tightly to Pierre’s upper arm. “Balcony. Now,” he snaps. 

Pierre must’ve been expecting it because he slips from the table without another word, clasping the door of the balcony open and then closed once again. The night air is warm against his skin, the cool inky darkness still chilling him to the bone. 

“You wanted to talk?”, Pierre spits out, “Let’s talk.”

Daniil prods him on his chest, “What the fuck was that in there?”

Pierre shrugs innocently, his eyes flashing sharp as a knife. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

_Look at me._

“You just expected to parade Charles in front of me and I wouldn’t get upset?”, Daniil barks. 

“You said it yourself, didn’t you?”, Pierre turns away from him. His fingertips stretch past the rail limits to glide against the oncoming wind. “This is nothing. We are nothing. It will end soon.”

 _I’m sorry_. 

And the stars. Once so beautiful only feel obnoxious to his grief. 

_Please, you know that’s not what I want._

_My tongue fails me till my bones break._

But he says none of this. 

“If I’m not enough for you, go back to Charles,” Daniil grits, “Leave.”

Pierre doesn’t move. He doesn’t face him either. A short scoff sounds itself into the night. “You’re not enough?” He whirls around, his eyes soft with rawness, sweet as candy melting under the sun. “You think tonight was all about you? About hurting you?”

“Obviously.”

Pierre looks disgusted. “It was. Is that what you want me to tell you?”

“Why?”, Daniil snarls, the distance across the balcony seemed like miles. 

“You’re going to leave eventually,” Pierre angrily wipes his wet eyes on his sleeve, “You’re going to walk out the door and pretend this was nothing.”

_You don’t see how I ache? How I burn as my teeth sink into the thought of you every night?_

“Are you fucking blind?”, Daniil shouts. He steals a step forward, both of his hands landing firmly on his shoulders.

Pierre shoves him away. “You don’t get to touch me. Not anymore. Not ever.”

“Please--”

“No,” Pierre snaps, “I’m not a door for you to walk in and out of when you choose.”

“Are you fucking blind?”, Daniil repeats, his words a scream. Again, Pierre pushes him back as he starts to advance. So, Daniil tries again, this time with desperation ad his hands are tighter on his arms to restrain him from pulling away. 

“I’m not blind,” Pierre draws out, “You think I don’t feel your hands in my hair as I sleep?”

“Enough,” Daniil releases from his arms. 

Pierre presses his fist to his chest, “You think I don’t see the way your eyes follow me and nobody else?”

In a sudden movement, swift as a bee's wing, Daniil’s hand flies to Pierre’s throat, the pads of his finders pressing into his skin. He leads his back to the concrete wall as if hoping to relinquish his control over him. But Pierre doesn’t so much as struggle on his grip and when his eyes meet his, there’s an aftertaste of glory in them as if to say: _haven’t we been here before?_

“You think you fucking know everything,” Daniil shakes his head, his grip loosening but remaining in place. 

“I don’t,” Pierre says, “But I know more than you.”

“Shut up,” Daniil is close to his face. _You’re every shade of color I see, my fever dream._ He draws near enough that his teeth scrape at the skin of his lip. 

For a moment, Pierre doesn’t move and a part of Daniil panics. The walls of his stomach bending in on each other. But moments are just that. Moments. Each moment bleeds into another and another like dominos. Pierre’s hands slip beneath his shirt just as Daniil’s melt below his waist. And the rest? The rest is history. 

History witnessed by the night above and every fleck that twisted itself in the milky way. It was all blue once again, the darkest he had ever seen. The moon is the only witness to everything. The hint of whiskey on Pierre’s tongue is a curse, an addiction that sends him further and further in. And Daniil is suddenly aware of how little control he truly had in this game of cat and mouse. 

The muscle of Pierre’s bare back is pale with the sweetness of dreams as he straddles his waist, nestling above him in a chair. He held his hands above his head as firmly as the night meets day. In a few hours, it will all be little more than violet. Violet with a hint of amber in the sunrise. 

_Let me wave a white flag to you, Atlas._

_We can be titans again one day._

_One day…_

Daniil never wants this end. A part of him is afraid it would be the last time. His touch reaches up as if reaching towards the stars. It cups Pierre’s cheek, his lips pressed to the lines of his palm. Daniil felt like a cartographer, mapping out the contours and maps of Pierre’s spine. A sailor with the dire need of a compass. Until the night bites frost across his chest, he would never move. 

Time is an enemy it seems because less than an hour the heat, and the tension, and the filth and the sweat is little more than a memory. A memory he recalls as he buttons up his shirt once again. All is quiet with the exception of still-slowing breaths. Maybe Daniil thought, somehow, this would make things right. That lust could quell the sadness they each felt. But with every minute that passed, it became more and more clear to him that it wasn't so. 

“Aren’t you going to say something?”, he asked tentatively. He stood up to approach the other man who lay bent over the balcony railing with his back to him. His attention was following a stray cat on the street. “Are you okay?”

“You thought this might fix things,” Pierre crossed his arms, staring into the crevice of his wrist. “I thought it might too.”

Daniil’s heart sank. “But how didn’t it?” For once in his life… there was no formula. No equation to calculate exactly how he was feeling. And this made him scared most of all. 

“Dany, nothing is different,” Pierre continues softly.

“Pierre, I can fix it, I can--”, an undertone of his voice is desperate. 

“I always wondered why you like your hand around my throat. It’s obvious, no? At that moment, you can choose between kissing me and killing me, can’t you?”, Pierre stammers. “You need that control.”

“Listen to me--”

“I also wondered why you stare at me when I'm across the room.” Daniil shuts his mouth, _I stare too deeply as if clinging to something within you I cannot touch_. “It’s because you want to be understood. I know you do. And you like that looking at me feels like… like…” _I’ve found something missing._ “Your words and your intentions are so, so different. And, Dany… you can’t keep hurting yourself. Pushing me and pushing me back.”

“Pierre…”, _no one holds my eyes like you do_. 

“No, Dany, listen,” Pierre’s mouth quivers, “It hurts me even more that you would rather run. Because you tell me we can’t have _this,_ that _this_ can’t be for us. Then you come back, and come back and come back again. And for the longest time, I believed it was me.” _It was never you_. “But it’s you, Dany. You’re the one who is running. You tell me we can’t carry this on much longer but then your eyes look so soft at me. And I know it’s not what you want.”

Daniil drank in his words like liquor and he believed in every word he spoke.

“I’m a coward, then.”

Pierre shakes his head furiously. “You’re not.” The stars reflect themselves across his cheeks, sewing themselves into each fleck of blue spotting his iris. “But you’re not brave enough to say you care about me either.”

 _I love you_. 

It was Pierre and it was Daniil. _It was me. It was you_. Around them lay thick silence underneath the absence of clouds. And they understood why their heart beats couldn’t stop racing. 

“I don’t want to burn you,” Daniil whispered. 

“You can only hold onto so many things in life.”

Daniil rubs the back of his neck, “I know.”

“Me or… whatever you’re holding yourself back from.”

“Have you ever heard of Prometheus?”

“Is that a car model?”

“No,” Daniil conceals a small grin. “He was a titan in Greek mythology. He was constantly stuck in this endless loop of self sabotage.”

“Let me guess: you?”

“Mostly he tried to do what was best but he kept failing because he set himself up for what he thinks is best instead of--”

Pierre nods, “Doing what’s best for him.”

“Yeah…”

A hand moves over his on the railing. “You’re not a coward, Dany. But I’m not always going to be around. So are you a Dany Kvyat or a Prometh-something?”

Daniil rolls his eyes, “Prometheus.”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

He sighs deeply. “Before you I’ve always been so rational, so together. I knew the solution and the answer to any problem I had.”

Pierre looks to him not with pity, but understanding. “And now?”

“I look at you and I just… lose all control. I feel things I can’t keep in check.”

 _Happy enough to scream and sad enough to weep_. 

“You shouldn’t be able to explain everything, Dany. Things happen, it’s life. It’s your choice to live it.”

 _I don’t think I have been_.

Pierre pulls away from him, his fingers placing themselves on the handle of the sliding glass door. Once again, he pauses and it’s oddly reminiscent of only the night before. This time, he doesn’t speak. Behind Daniil’s back the door opens without closing as if inviting him in. Daniil only leans his head down and brushes the pads of his touch across the petals of a flower bush. Gorgeous enough to pluck but not strong enough to keep. 

The room carries a melodic silence as he enters. The bedroom gushes an angelic lift of laughter that fluttered from a few vocal chords. As he passes, Sebastian calls out to him with an invitation of languid peace. Daniil shrugs apologetically and slips towards the kitchen with breathlessness in his throat. The moment he enters, a part of him regrets it. 

Charles doesn’t turn his head towards him as he enters. A glass of water sits untouched on the counter before him, his eyes stuck on his reflection in the coffee machine. Daniil contemplates stepping back out but he swallows his pride and opens the cabinet. The sound of glass clinking together finally draws the other man’s attention. 

“How was the balcony?”, Charles is stone-faced but, as usual, his features are soft with kindness. 

Daniil fills his glass by the sink filter. “What do you mean?”, he replies. 

“The balcony,” Charles stretches a hand over his bare chest, cupping his own shoulder warmly. “You were there for quite a while.”

“Oh,” Daniil swallows, “You know. The same thing you were doing.”

“Not me. I prefer to watch,” Charles takes a sip and Daniil almost chokes on his drink. “It was more than that though, I saw you talking. Everything okay?”

Daniil shifts his gaze away, “It’s nothing you would understand.”

Charles raises a brow ever so slightly, “You’d be surprised. I’ve known Pierre since he was what? Five?”

The gears in Daniil’s head crank into action as though desperate for stimulation. _Eighteen years_. He doesn’t know if he’s ever had a friend for even half that long. “You should know him very well,” Daniil grunts. 

Charles smiles and something about it reminds him of honey. “I do,” he nods. 

“Intimately?”

Charles hardly blinks. “Yes, for a time.”

Daniil sighs, “Then he’ll have no problem finding someone after me.”

“You don’t want him?”, Charles crosses his arms almost protectively. 

“No!”, Daniil shakes his head urgently, “Of course I do.”

“So what’s the problem?”

Daniil grits his teeth and the moment on the balcony only minutes prior flashes across his memory. It’s in fragments and it’s in small details. It’s the cool wind that coiled itself across Pierre’s curls or his lips soft like pressed rose petals pushing towards him in the dark. It’s warm palms and harsh callouses cuffing at his shoulders. It’s the trust in Pierre’s eyes and the adoration that colored each golden gaze that passed over his face. All this and so many things more. 

It’s not noise but instead silence that draws him back from his thoughts. “He wants more than I know I can give him.”

 _It’s what he deserves_. 

“And you’re not even going to try?”

“Why bother?”

_He is worth all that world he holds upon his shoulders…_

“Dany,” Charles points towards him as if sending an arrow through his already ripened heart. “Do you why Pierre and I stopped seeing each other so closely?”

Daniil didn’t have even the slightest idea. “You two had a fight, obviously,” he guesses. 

Charles laughs and the out-of-place nature of it surprises Daniil (he hates being wrong). “I can’t remember even one time Pierre and I fought, so no. Pierre is very forgiving, too much I think. He likes to believe the best about people.”

“He’s not naive,” Daniil fires back. 

“I know,” Charles puts up two hands as though to calm him. 

“Then why did you two stop?”

Another sleepy grin meets the contours of his face. “Pierre is a bit of a romantic. He was waiting for someone. Eventually. Something real.”

“He had it right in front of him,” Daniil murmurs. 

“Me?”, Charles chuckles agreeably. “We didn’t want things to get messy. We established that a long time ago.” He leans back on the counter, “Anyways. Out of nowhere, this past summer, he starts talking about someone he’d met. Someone we both knew but that it would surprise me.”

“I didn’t know,” Daniil rubs his hands together nervously. 

“He talks about you like you put stars in the sky or something.” Charles rolls his eyes, “Softie, he is.” Daniil suddenly feels warm. “I’d hold onto him if I were you.”

And, maybe, life could be lived after all. Love and all the mess in between.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this came a day later than expected. I was traveling and couldn't edit this chapter until today. I hope you enjoy :)
> 
> My Tumblr is @pierregasly if you enjoyed please comment! Commenting helps our your creators. Thank you sm :)


	3. Chapter III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And maybe it can come together again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this update is a little late! I haven't had the motivation to edit, let alone write lately. I am so sad to see this fic go, it was certainly one of my favorites to write in a long time :( I hope you enjoy! I made a Danierre Spotify playlist which I will link at the end of the fic (I am still currently adding songs to it).

United States. One week later. Seven days. A hundred and sixty-eight hours. Ten thousand and eighty minutes. And Daniil recalls every pained moment of it. He arrived on a Wednesday exhausted and somehow full of life. But the very first hint of trouble arose in Pierre’s replies to him over the phone. 

“How was your flight?”

_ “Good.” _

“Only good?”

_ “Yes, good.” _

“Prepared for this weekend?”

_ “Yes.” _

Daniil sighs audible, “You’re quiet tonight.”

_ “I don’t have many things to talk to you about.” _

“I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

_ “If you have time, I guess.” _

So Daniil chases his thoughts on the ceiling. His eyes catching on every rosy-blue hue that colonized the room around him. The still-innocent fragment of him lingered in a bitter nostalgia. It’s really been but a few months since Germany. Yet it could’ve been mistaken for a century in his mind. 

_ I would turn all these moments into a tape so I could rewind my favorite parts.  _

Arriving at the track in the late morning, his eyes scan the paddock searching for a semblance of Pierre. In the back of the garage, he tosses his things to the floor before crossing the hallway towards the other room. The door is half parted as he enters and he pushes it further. 

“Good morning,” Daniil nods, placing his hand on the door frame. 

Pierre forces a smile in kindness but it doesn’t reach towards his eyes which have an empty, unenthused appearance. “Good morning,” he stands off the cot to his feet, smoothing his hands over his legs almost apprehensively.

Daniil frowns, “What is wrong with you?” Typically Pierre bounds forward excitedly, his mouth pressed to the hollow of his cheek. 

“What do you mean?”, Pierre purses his lips, snatching his sweater from the hook on the wall. 

Daniil steps across the space, placing a hand on his shoulder to stop his movements. “Pierre, you’ve been different since Mexico. What’s going on?” Pierre allows his arms to fall at his sides, his head hanging towards the floor. Daniil can’t help thinking he gives off the appearance of a lost child. And dawns on him suddenly. His stomach clenches almost as tight as his teeth. “Go on,” Daniil’s jaw is iron, “Say it.”

Pierre glances up to his face sadly. “You won’t change your mind, will you?” Daniil’s mouth bobs open and closed again. “You’re going to choose your... self sabotage?” Silence. Pierre grits his teeth and snaps himself away, “That’s what I thought.” He moves his shoulder and shoves Daniil’s hand off of him. 

Daniil backs towards the door as if to block Pierre from leaving the room. “But--”, he starts, panic is overtaking him. His mouth is dry, his thoughts heavy and shallow in his skull. 

_ But I want to live _ , he screams over and over.  _ I want to live, I want to live, I want to live, I want to live, I want to live-- _

Pierre looks at him expectedly. “Yes, Dany?” There’s a fragment of hope in his voice. It was the most depressing thing Daniil had ever seen. 

_ He always believes the best of people.  _

And the words bubble in Daniil’s throat thickly as if wanting nothing more than be spoken.  _ I want this forreal, for certain, forever _ . His mind is racing with a thousand unsettled thoughts. The perfect calculation of stringed together words to make Pierre not leave. It’s all lost, it’s all lost upon him. 

Pierre reaches up, his hand guiding Daniil’s hand gently from the doorway so that he can pass. At the last second, Daniil grabs for his wrist and pulls him back. But Pierre doesn’t fight him. He only tugs delicately at the fingers wrapping his skin until Daniil’s touch falls away into nothing. Pierre's smile is cold with sadness. 

And, somehow, after months of feeling everything… Daniil feels absolutely nothing. And it was worse than anything he could’ve ever imagined. His knees feel weak and his mind is blank. The very taste of their whole story shattered itself like glass on his tongue. 

For the rest of the day, their eyes do not meet. That loud part of him continues to search, however in vain. Every glance to his back he could imagine was theirs. Each trickle of sunlight on his knuckle was familiar in a way he can’t quite place his finger on. But he felt… absolutely nothing. 

What he did experience was in the solitude of his room that night as he allowed his nails to bend and weave across the strings of his guitar. He fumbled with the chords, his fingers tripping on the wires and it all reminded him of Pierre. The sweet or sour notes and everything in between. It’s strange how quickly you forget the scent of wildflowers when they’re not around. 

His hand carries a hankering for flesh, for skin, for the sensation of blood pounding through veins into his own. Everytime that weekend he attempts to reach for him as naturally as a breath, he recalls the moment in the doorway not too long ago. The way Pierre had brushed his touch away as though he were nothing but dust. 

_ Is that what we all are?  _

Only identical matter as the stars above our heads. Perhaps this is why we discover galaxies in each other’s eyes. It is the universe sewing the story of where we come from into our bones.

The energy in Brazil is largely the same. Daniil catches him laughing on the paddock, Charles at his side. It doesn’t burn him with anger as it usually would. All he can think is:

_ I’ve done this to myself.  _

_ I have nothing to feel but regret.  _

He stares without expression towards the mirror. He could convince himself for a moment Pierre was nestled on the cot at his side with his head on his shoulder. The sleepy sighs and soft simpers that greet the lines of his face are sunbeams in the dead of winter. Daniil tosses his gaze from the mirror to behind him and the image has cleared. He is alone. 

_ Why did I kiss him? _

_ Truly.  _

_ Why did I kiss him all those months ago? _

Daniil presses a finger to his own lips soft as feathered wings. 

_ What is it about him? _

Pierre is kind. The kindest man he’d ever met. He’d spot the yellow in a gray day without being inquired to. 

_ No, I didn’t answer the question. What is it about him? Of all the seven billion souls blinking in this world, why did I kiss him? _

Watching Pierre the first half of the season was one of the most painful things he’d ever seen. The way Pierre drifted around the paddock with his eyes down low as though he were nothing more than a ghost. 

_ But why did I kiss him? I barely even knew him.  _

Yet something about Pierre felt intimately dear to him. A memory long forgotten but one filled with warmth and light. Summer at his grandmother’s dacha in the countryside with his arms drifting through the thistles. 

_ I kissed him because in a paddock full of strangers… I knew him best.  _

Daniil’s forehead carries a history of fine wrinkles from all but a few years ago. The brown of his eyes are cold with betrayal. 

_ I once was him _ . 

There’s still that dullness to Pierre’s movement. A wound still open, a wound still fresh. 

_ I kissed him because I didn’t want him to believe he was alone.  _

And it was a kiss he’d never forget. A moment he’d long cherish. Even though he could not find the words to explain, it felt easy… Pierre felt easy to love. And the way Pierre stared towards him let him know also…

_ You are not alone. He feels things deeply too.  _

Daniil suddenly stood to his feet. The pulse in his neck drummed frantically towards his chest. Nothing of this truly matters in the end. We are nothing but atoms one day returning themselves to the earth. So why wait? Daniil cannot sit here until his dying days convincing himself that Pierre is not what he wants. 

But he doesn’t get a chance. All through the weekend. Not a chance. He reaches a glimpse across the garage and Pierre is postulated with his trainer by his side and an engineer. And he looks… happy. More happy than Daniil has seen him all of these months. 

Swallowing his pride, Daniil approaches him early Saturday morning. “Can I talk to you?”, he interrupts the conversation, placing a hand on Pierre’s shoulder. 

Pierre whirls around, his expression is kind but meaningless and blank. “I think it can wait until later,” he nods in the direction of his mechanic. 

“Please,” Daniil pleads, he presses harder into his muscle. “I really need to speak to you.”

Perhaps the most frightening thing of all, the thing that made Daniil tug his arm away was the lack of emotion dug into the lines of Pierre’s face. “You had time for that before,” he blinks, turning away. 

But just as he had pleaded with his words, Daniil urges now with desperation. “Please--”

“No!”, Pierre shouts, drawing a few eyes in his direction. His cheeks flush pink with embarrassment. “Dany,” his voice is low and melancholy, “There was the time for us.”

_ I’m sorry.  _

_ Please, Pierre, forgive me.  _

The man before him only smiled. He only smiled with all the sweetness of a flower drenched under the summer rain. And he was beautiful. More beautiful than he had ever imagined. 

_ I love you.  _

_ Do you know that? _

_ Do you realize I love you? _

_ I want only the courage but to speak it.  _

_ The moon I would give you if I could.  _

_ Please, believe me.  _

_ It is all I ask of you… _

_ Believe me.  _

With all the kindness he was constructed of, Pierre’s teeth poked themselves over the plumpness of his lips. “I know,” he said. Daniil’s heart kicked a pace in his chest. “It’s too late.” And he was gone. Swiftly as a tear on a cheek or as impatient as a racer craving the track. Gone as all the times he had slammed the door after himself as he left before. 

_ And I love you still.  _

_ I will always love you still.  _

Daniil would’ve given up. Maybe he should’ve. But love doesn’t forgive, nor does it forget. Race day arrived with the Brazilian sun. He settled into his seat, belts strapped around him until his knuckles rubbed white across the wheel and the lights fell…

_ One. Two. Three. Four. Five.  _

_ Nothing.  _

He ignored the numbers. The pulse threading through the pads of his fingertips steered himself into every carve of the track. He forgot most of it until the end when he got the message into his ear as he crossed the checkered flag. 

“Congratulations, Dany, P10!”

Daniil pursed his lips as if to chew on the small of his mouth. The grin faltered as his thoughts came to life inside him:

“And Pierre? Where--”

“P2! Podium!”

His heart stops. He doesn’t say a word. The dull roar out of his helmet is all but silence around him. 

He… did it. 

Pierre did it. 

What everyone believed impossible, what wasn’t expected of him. 

They both had, eventually, after time. 

Nobody held their futures in their hands but their own. 

Treading himself up the paddock, he saw Pierre hop out of the car and run over to the team. Daniil felt somehow out of place, as though he were in danger of interfering with magic. He dismissed this, crossing towards the team with his attention primed and focused. The wind swayed with energy, everything felt vibrant and unconquerable. The shouts and cheers made Daniil’s head spin, low and off to the side all but a spectator. 

But Pierre noticed him. As always. Even when all others failed to acknowledge his presence. A part of Pierre felt him watching, felt his presence as though a current of electricity has rippled though the atmosphere between them. Still in their helmets, Pierre only paused, his eyes bright and shining with blue gold. Daniil placed a hand on his shoulder and nodded, blinking slowly to him. And they smiled at one another. 

_ You did it.  _

Pierre grinned wider than before, his eyes small with tight wrinkles and tears. 

_ My soul whispers to me, quietly, the desire to lace itself with yours.  _

_ But that, I know they already have.  _

After a moment, Pierre was gone and Daniil removed himself to the garage. He folded his uniform away, brushing at his sweaty hair and preparing himself for interviews and debriefing. The next few hours were a blur, the image of Pierre and his second place trophy plasted up the paddock, seared into his memory. He felt happy for him, yet, sad somehow. He would’ve liked to celebrate with him. Closer to dark, he tugged his things into his bag. He suddenly realized: only one more to go. One more race. That and nothing more. No chances, no promises, no…

A knock on the door of his motorhome sent a spark of irritation within him. 

“I’ll be done in a second,” he zipped up his items. 

“Dany.”

Daniil swallowed and shifted his attention towards the door. It was Pierre. He was pink cheeked and rubbing at his arm nervously. There was an appearance of resignation and glory across his features. Daniil’s eyes drifted towards the silver trophy he held tightly to his chest as if scared he would misplace it by accident. Daniil didn’t move for a moment. He snapped rapidly to his feet but neither man stepped towards each other. 

“I’m happy for you,” he pointed towards the trophy. 

Pierre glanced towards it as if it meant the world to him and more. The silver swam itself in streaks of color across his irises. “We both got our redemption, didn’t we?”, despite the elation and adrenaline, there was a hint of exhaustion in his voice. 

“I won’t keep you longer,” Daniil sighed, drawing his bag across his shoulder. 

Pierre chewed on his bottom lip. “I didn’t mean to snap at you yesterday, I apologize,” he said, “And you aren’t keeping me. I came to you.”

Daniil simpered, “You didn’t have to apologize.” His jaw tightened, he nodded towards the trophy, “Enjoy that. Won’t you?”

Pierre cocked his head, “Without you?”

It felt almost like a bullet had ripped through him. So, naturally, he chuckled painfully, “As if you’d want me there.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Even after…”

“After what?”

Daniil shook his head, flopping into the chair and setting his bag back on the shelf. “After all this,” he pointed quickly between them. 

“Oh,” Pierre flushed again, “Us.”  _ But you already knew that.  _ Pierre stepped around him and sat on the cot. He placed the trophy in between his thighs. Daniil balanced his chin on his palm and glanced at him from the corner of his eye. “Dany?”, Pierre called. 

The sound of his name felt… bright. 

“Yes?”, he turned to face him fully. 

Pierre rubbed his hands over his knees. “We are still friends, yes?”, he asked. 

_ The tides of life, the tides of our souls are inseparable. _

“I--”, Daniil's throat was dry. “I don’t know if I can.”

_ Do you know the hardest thing I ever had to do? _

_ Knowing I had to let go of you.  _

Pierre sighed deeply once more. “Neither can I.” The rings under his eyes are red with thought. “I didn’t know it would get to be this much.”

“I know, Pierre.” 

_ You bustled into my life as unexpected as violent sea waves.  _

They were watching one another. “I can’t be friends with you.”

“I don’t want you to hate me--”

“I can’t be your friend because I will always want more."  It slipped out as fluently as a curse. Daniil hadn’t realized what he had said but his mind blanked in the silence. No numbers, only blank spaces that filled his brain like white smoke. 

Pierre’s throat trembled, “More?”

“More,” Daniil’s brows softened on his high forehead. “I want more.”

“With me?”

“I always did,” Daniil is vaguely aware his tone is sewn with yearning. “You already knew that. Maybe even before I did.”

Pierre didn’t say a word. He traced his thumb carefully across the scrawled letters spelled out on the frame of his trophy. “What changed your mind?”, he seemed hesitant. 

“Nothing,” Daniil urged, “Absolutely nothing changed.” A part of Daniil had expected Pierre to jump up, springing over to wrap his arms around his neck. But he didn’t. In fact, neither of them moved.

_ Believe me, dear, with all that water on your shoulders, let’s create a storm.  _

“Why do you want this?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“No,” Pierre arches himself over the cot, his elbows on his legs.

“I care about you.”

“That’s not good enough.”

Daniil’s hands twitch with slight annoyance. “I don’t think around you. My mind is always filled with… a lot. I hold myself back sometimes, I believe. Just as you said.” He reaches out and places his hand on top of Pierre’s. This time, Pierre doesn’t flinch it away from him. “It wasn’t about you to begin with. You have this effect on me and it… it pushes me away.”

“It isn’t something you can control,” Pierre squeezes his palm in his. 

“Yeah,” Daniil chuckles, hanging his head, “You’d told me.”

In a small action, Pierre pinches his chin and draws his eyes towards him once again. “So don’t run,” he smirks. 

“I don’t plan on it,” Daniil smiles back. In the quietude, Pierre only cupped Daniil’s face in between his hands. His touch brushes across his cheeks, holding onto every inch of him that he could. 

_ I don’t want to let you go. _

_ I never wanted to.  _

They both stared into one another; stared as if their eyes were keys to unlock trap doors. And each seemed to say, without any sound at all,  _ you still mean the world to me _ . Everything around them felt warmer than it ever had been before. Like a fire that had not yet known how bright it can truly be. 

The ride to the hotel is silent. The night is clear and dark without any stars. A blank slate, a new start; a canvas without any paint. In the backseat, their fingertips brush in the center before lacing in quiet communion. Daniil turned his head and watched Pierre’s profile as it sat turned towards the sky above. Every tuft of his hair was burnt blue by the horizon as the wave of his lashes fluttered softer than a bee’s wing. 

As he had done after his podium, Daniil kissed him. 

In between lips, Pierre murmured, “Careful. The driver will see.”

Daniil didn’t pull away. “That doesn’t matter.”

_ I trust your lips on mine.  _

_ That is enough for me. _

The world was easier to hold when it was shared between them. 

Daniil forgot everything else. Everything else but Pierre. 

And it was all blue, blue, blue… 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for sticking through till the end of the fic. If you enjoyed it please comment (I'll take anything even only a few words). Let me know if you would like to continue the Danierre plot line in another fic or if you have requests for Danierre content. My Tumblr is @pierregasly and here is the link to the Danierre Spotify playlist if you're interested:
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2MK0U0l5ZpffqHOxkTlGl0?si=RiHFKKObQs6oVqx5s6G0HA

**Author's Note:**

> As usual: please, please comment if you enjoyed! If takes a long time to write and barely any seconds to write a simple comment. Thank you for reading <3 My Tumblr is @pierregasly


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